Tag: water

New Islington, Manchester

I finally made my way there.

New Islington is a new development area near the city centre. (More info here.)

As I walked along the canal with my camera, I was asked by people to take their picture–all of three times. It does happen–but not three times during the same walk, in the span of about 10 minutes! I felt like I was living in a story.

The first time was two middle-aged men sitting on a bench; the second time two young men sitting on a bench–one of them actually stood up and approached me and even offered me money! (I said no, it’s just a hobby)–the third time was a group of young people from Liverpool. I did actually take their picture, but with one of their phones, not my camera.

What made me depressed, though, was that on two out of those three occasions I was asked “where are you from”, after speaking a bare one or two lines. I either ignore those type of questions or answer “Europe” or, like yesterday to those two older men (who were clearly Indian and spoke accented English themselves), “planet Earth”. Look, I hate my accent as much as you do and yeah, twenty years of living here I should not be speaking like that, but what can I do? Speaking is a skill I always lacked. Writing is my more of my thing. I don’t know what I should do, book some voice coaching lessons or what…

Well, this post escalated somewhere it shouldn’t have, so uh… hope you like the pictures. It’s been a nice sunny weekend here in Manchester!

Canals Of Manchester

It’s actually only one canal–Rochdale Canal–but the plural sounds better as a title.

It runs between Sowerby Bridge in West Yorkshire and Manchester. I walked along part of it that flows through Manchester city centre and took some pictures.

Canal Street, aka Gay Village.

Lock in Canal Street.

Reflection of a typical Manchester architecture.

Tunnel.

Ducks, my old friends.

Goose posing for me.

Danube River, Bratislava

Here are some shots of River Danube I took on my visit to my home town of Bratislava.

This is the Bridge of Slovak National Uprising, also known as the UFO Bridge.

The bridge featured on Some Photoblog before, where I talked about the controversy surrounding its construction. (Some parts of the Old Town, including a synagogue, were demolished so that the bridge could be built. It Was The Communists.)

UFO Bridge photographed from the Castle.

Also from the Castle; the opposite bank is Austria. Bratislava lies right on the border of not one but two countries (the second one is Hungary). They all used to be a part of one Habsburg empire once.

Sunset, the best thing anywhere in the world. This bridge is called the Old Bridge.

Danube is the second longest river in Europe and flows through nine countries. Aside from Bratislava, three other capitals are located on it: Vienna, Budapest and Belgrade.

Autumnal Castlefield

You know you can’t get enough of autumn!

I took so many nice pictures on my walk in Castlefield, Manchester, at the end of October, I couldn’t just keep them all to myself. Here I share them with you:

Hold an autumn leaf.

Throw it in the canal.

Goose eats it.

Asters in front of the Roman fortress. I wonder if they were there when Romans were there. Would a Roman centurion admire these asters, perhaps?

A setting sun. It never disappoints.

Roman Lakes, Marple

The problem with taking so many pictures when going on a trip is that it’s so hard to decide which ones to post on the blog.

me

When I went to Marple, I didn’t have any particular plan. I asked the guy behind the information counter at the station what there was to see and he said there was a river on one side (Goyt), canal on the other and that there was a place called Roman Lakes.

I went down to the village and walked a bit, when I spotted a trail and I thought, okay, since I had such a good experience with it last time in Hebden Bridge, I would try it again. A good decision! Not only did I get a healthy hike and some great shots out of it, I eventually reached the lakes place the information guy told me about–from the other side.

I can see why it is popular.

My old friends ducks and geese hang out here a lot.

That’s where I sat when eating my bacon sandwich. Yes, they do serve food and drink here and there is also a toilet–see the building on the left on the top photo.

I should add, the lakes have nothing to do with Romans, they’re just named that way. I haven’t managed to find out why, so I’m going with Bill of Kill Bill‘s saying “They thought it sounded cool”.

Liverpool – Albert Dock

This entry is a repost with added material.

Today I will share with you some photographs from my trip to Liverpool, more specifically the famous Albert Dock.

Albert Dock is a complex of dock buildings and warehouses that was completed in 1846. It enabled ships to be loaded from warehouses directly and was the first structure in Britain built without wood using cast iron, bricks and stone. Today it’s a popular tourist attraction.

The above three pictures appeared previously in my post Wanderlust. This was my participation in now dead WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge. I have now added three more:

Liverpool has some sick museums, seriously. I’ve not been to the Museum of Liverpool that is shown on the last pic, but I have visited the Merseyside Maritime Museum and also World Museum that is near the Lime Street train station. And there is, of course, the Beatles Story, because you can’t mention Liverpool without mentioning the Beatles!

The reason for the repost is that I felt that Albert Dock, or anything Liverpool really, is too good and too big to be hidden under an entry titled “Wanderlust”–when I don’t use that word anywhere else on this blog–and part of a challenge that has long since been killed by WordPress (RIP). It deserves its own properly titled post. So here it is–with three more pics.

I guess it’s like what a music artist would call a remix.